<p>Improving the financial inclusion of women has been found to generate benefits in terms of higher economic participation, better health and well-being outcomes for households, and a more stable financial sector in general. In this paper, we investigate whether women’s financial inclusion can generate further benefits for women extending to non-financial domains such as personal autonomy. Taking India as a case study, we use nationally representative data from India’s National Family Health Surveys for 2015-16, combined with district-level data on the coverage of commercial bank branches. Defining financial inclusion as a woman having access to a personal bank account and using recursive bivariate probit (RBP) models, we detect that having access to a bank account bears a positive statistical relationship to three indicators of personal autonomy, namely: a woman’s freedom of mobility, having a say in household and personal decisions, and sexual assertiveness within her marital relationship. This positive link between financial inclusion and women’s autonomy is mainly detected with respect to mobility and household/personal decision-making. However, where financial inclusion does appear to empower women in relation to sexual assertiveness, it is among the most disadvantaged cohorts of women. Our results provide evidence to support investment in policies to foster women’s financial inclusion as a means of promoting empowerment of women. However, we also caution that the evaluation of such interventions is needed to ensure that the intended effects are realised and to monitor potential retaliatory backlash effects against progress on women’s empowerment.</p>